Archive for 2008 March

Yesterday they printed an opinion piece by Lorne Gunter, who said the 23 members of an oil-funded lobby of climate change deniers were comparable to the 3500 vetted and uncompensated scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Read more »

Prime Minister Harper is intervening on behalf of Canadian Mohamed Kohail, sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia. Obviously, this is a good thing. We don’t support capital punishment in Canada, and there are questions about the way trials are conducted in Saudi Arabia.

What’s upsetting is that Harper is not intervening in other cases. Three months ago, he announced that Canada would not intervene in death penalty cases in democratic countries. He thus overturned decades of precedent in Canadian diplomacy and incurred the wrath of many human rights organizations and the Anglican Church of Canada. As a result, at least one Canadian, Ronald Smith, is likely to be executed in the United States.

I’ve just added a new category, “hope”. There’s bits of good news popping up amid all the mind-reeling bad. Today’s news reports that the Southern Baptists, who represent 16 million Americans, have diverged from their prior stance of doubting global warming. Not only do they now accept that humans are responsible, but have stated that we have a moral duty to fight it.

That’s extremely good news for me, because I’ve been thinking for many years that we’ll only see some real action on this issue when a broad base of ecumenical groups gets involved.

Press release from the Green Party of Canada on International Women’s Day:

OTTAWA – The Green Party is celebrating International Women’s Day and calling for a renewed focus on achieving equality for women in Canada.

“The situation for women has improved immensely over the past century, but there is much work to be done. Women still earn only about 70 percent of what men take home,” said Green Party leader Elizabeth May. “Unfortunately, the situation has been made worse by the regressive actions of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has done more damage to issues important to women in two years than many of us thought possible. Last year, Canada slipped from 14th to 18th place in terms of women’s equality.” Read more »

Canada used to have two electric car manufacturers. Dynasty, in Delta, British Columbia, and Zenn, based in Toronto, with a manufacturing facility in St. Jerome, Quebec. Dynasty has closed its BC operations and is moving its manufacturing facilities overseas. Zenn is considering following suit. It’s no wonder.

We subsidize, at $1 billion annually, the manufacture of the biggest gas-guzzlers by profitable American corporations that repatriate their profits next door. We subsidize big oil even more, at $1.4 billion annually. For Canadian innovations that would dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions profile, we make it difficult to even get a foot in the door. Read more »